In order to facilitate the work related to vacuum cleaning of floor areas in different types of building structures, autonomous vacuum cleaners have been available on the market for some time. These autonomous cleaners automatically move in different directions over the floor to clean the floor area without human involvement. The cleaner is either moving randomly or according to a predetermined pattern over the floor until a navigation system detects an obstacle or the cleaner hit some obstacle and turn. Consequently, the size and design of the cleaner is important factors to ensure that the cleaner is able to access as large area as possible of the floor since a cleaner with a limited height and width will be able to access areas under and around furniture, or in close corners more easily.
Autonomous cleaners have a cleaner body which comprises the different components of the cleaner, and wheels supporting the body to make it possible for the cleaner to move over the floor surface. In the cleaner body electrical motors are arranged together with at least two wheels for powering the cleaner. Particles such as dust, sand etc are collected from the floor surface by a brush roll and lead via a passage adjacent to the roll to a dust container arranged within the body. In order to further improve the cleaning result the roll could be combined with a fan powered by an electric motor to generate a flow of air through the passage to suck the particles into the passage and the dust container.
In order to make the cleaner work as intended, and ensure a good cleaning result, several components need to be arranged in the cleaner body. This is however contradictable to the desired small outer dimensions of the cleaner body to make it possible for the cleaner to access as large area as possible of the floor surface. The design of each of the components, as well as the interior design of the cleaner is consequently extremely important to ensure the desired function of the different components, the desired limited size of the cleaner body and the possibility to clean as large areas as possible without requiring frequent emptying of the dust container.
There are a number of autonomous cleaners disclosed in the prior art. One example of a cleaner is illustrated in WO 2013/105431. The disclosed cleaner has a substantially circular cleaner body comprising the different components of the cleaner. As can be seen in the figures a number of different components are fitted within the cleaner body which in combination with the desired small outer size of the cleaner makes the room for the different components limited. The limited space within the cleaner body has some severe drawbacks on the disclosed cleaner. One of them is that the dust container has a very small volume. The small volume results in that the container must be emptied more frequently to ensure the desired cleaning result which is devastating since the container must be emptied manually. Furthermore the removal and fitting of the dust container in the cleaner body is complicated due to the complex design of the dust container and the surrounding structures in the cleaner body.
There is consequently a need for an improved dust container and an autonomous cleaner design that reduces the drawback described above.